A campaign to eradicate New Zealand’s cats as a way of protecting native wildlife has raised the hackles of pet lovers, with critics leaping to the defence of their feline friends. Gareth Morgan, a businessman turned philanthropist, has called for New Zealanders to give puss the boot, citing research showing the average cat kills at least 13 native birds or animals each year. More here

Bhikkhus, if you develop and make much this one thing, it invariably leads to weariness, cessation, appeasement, realization and extinction. What is it? It is recollecting the Enlightened One. If this single thing is recollected and made much, it invariably leads to weariness, cessation, appeasement, realization and extinction.Anguttara-Nikaya: Ekanipata: Ekadhammapali: PañhamavaggaVSMVMMWBBTBHTWTBTMy Page

Unless they can prove that humans are less damaging to native wildlife, i say ban the humans.

"When you meditate, don't send your mind outside. Don't fasten onto any knowledge at all. Whatever knowledge you've gained from books or teachers, don't bring it in to complicate things. Cut away all preoccupations, and then as you meditate let all your knowledge come from what's going on in the mind. When the mind is quiet, you'll know it for yourself. But you have to keep meditating a lot. When the time comes for things to develop, they'll develop on their own. Whatever you know, have it come from your own mind.http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai ... eleft.html

It's certainly true that the Maori and European immigrants were rather effective at burning and cutting down most of the forests...

Unfortunately, the Europeans went even further, introducing possums (from Australia), deer, cats, dogs, rabbits, ferrets, stoats (the latter two to try to deal with the rabbits, I believe). Not to mention sheep, cows, thar, various small birds. Oh, and bees for pollination of crops...

This offering maybe right, or wrong, but it is one, the other, both, or neither!Blog,-Some Suttas Translated,Ajahn Chah."Others will misconstrue reality due to their personal perspectives, doggedly holding onto and not easily discarding them; We shall not misconstrue reality due to our own personal perspectives, nor doggedly holding onto them, but will discard them easily. This effacement shall be done."

mikenz66 wrote:It's certainly true that the Maori and European immigrants were rather effective at burning and cutting down most of the forests...

Unfortunately, the Europeans went even further, introducing possums (from Australia), deer, cats, dogs, rabbits, ferrets, stoats (the latter two to try to deal with the rabbits, I believe). Not to mention sheep, cows, thar, various small birds. Oh, and bees for pollination of crops...

Did I miss anything?

Mike

I believe you did, Mike. Magpies from Australia.When I attended a 20-day retreat in New Zealand five years ago, I couldn't believe my eyes when I witnessed Australian possums, as bold as brass, chillin' at the meditation centre. I understand that NZ is over-run by possums and they have done enormous damage to the remaining native forest.And you didn't include rats and mice which are incredibly destructive.kind regards,

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

The emergence of intelligence, I am convinced, tends to unbalance the ecology. In other words, intelligence is the great polluter. It is not until a creature begins to manage its environment that nature is thrown into disorder. Until that occurs, there is a system of checks and balances operating in a logical and understandable manner. Intelligence destroys and modifies the checks and balances even as it tries very diligently to leave them as they were. There is no such thing as an intelligence living harmony with the biosphere. It may think and boast it is doing so, but its mentality gives it an advantage and the compulsion is always there to employ this advantage to its selfish benefit. Thus, while intelligence may be an outstanding survival factor, the factor is short-term, and intelligence turns out to be the great destroyer. -- written by a crazy character in SHAKESPEARE'S PLANET, a sci-fi novel by Clifford Simak, 1976.

Free-roaming house cats kill an estimated 4 billion wild animals across the U.S. every year, including birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians

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This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond.SN I, 38.

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

Ben wrote:And you didn't include rats and mice which are incredibly destructive.kind regards,

Ben

If that's the case, then my fine feline friend is doing her bit for the environment; she hunts down and kills rats and mice quite often.

_/I\_

If that is all she is killing, then I would agree with you.

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

We have adopted two cats. The cute kitten has almost eradicated our house of cockroaches! My kids don't want to kiss her after they saw one jump out of her mouth

Graham

The only problem with kitties eating cockroaches is the possibility of worms. Because feral domestic cats eat insects and such they are often highly infested with parasites, and as a result they lead short, miserable lives. As for your cockroach eating kitty, you might want to get some deworming pills for it.

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond.SN I, 38.

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

I never let my cats out...Mixy(my cat in Bangkok) ran out when I opened the door(coming back from school).

Pickle(my green/yellow cat in Columbus,Ohio) ran away while we were moving to Texas A&m, after driving for a long time, we stopped at a rest area to rest/walk around...Pickle just ran away...we waited for him to come back for an hour...but no... he was gone for good...I cried because I loved him since the day he was born..his mother,a stray cat, pregnanted and gave birth to 5 supercute kittens at my front porch on the rug..I moved them inside my house...my Thai/American friends adopted 4 kittens...my daughter kept 1 and named him 'Pickle'...

They ran out many times but always came back...when they were older they were gone..no coming back.

Nooooo we don't want to kill them! I collect cockroaches when we find them and carry them out in a bag One day I found 12 in the old house. Our new house is cleaner, we don't find many. Also insecticides would kill the lizards, I love those. Now it's raining again (in the dry season!) we have frogs in the kitchen once more.

We only treat for termites about once a month and try not to kill the other wildlife

The very first Precept reads:1. I undertake the training rule to abstain from taking life. Pāṇātipātā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi.This includes all life, not just human life.

Here is a sample of the hundreds of sites which explain how to catch and release, or just repel, what humans regards as pests - without breaking the First Precept.

Category:Insect repellentsFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, searchInsect repellents (or uncommonly insectifuges) repel insects but do not kill them. Therefore, they are not technically insecticides nor technically pesticides. This category contains articles on insect repellents that are not insecticides, meaning that their main purpose/function is not to kill but to repel. Articles here may relate to chemical, physical or biological barriers.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Insect_repellents

I remember lots of field mice coming into my house. I bought a Mouse House, a non-harming trap, and mice food and caught four or five. I kept them in the Mouse House for a few weeks, and then released them next to a creek in the bush after digging a safe nest for them.

with mettaChris

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---